Or, the G d, the Bad,
and the Ugly
For about a decade or more, it has been possible to get cheap
cordless drills from Harbor Freight
( www.harbor freight.com). These
have steadily improved in power
over that time, with the standard
voltage climbing from 9.6V through
12V and 14.4V to 18V — all with
essentially the same size gearbox
and motor RPM.

My requirements were:
• 14.4V–24V nominal voltage.

● by Pete Smith

Much “Googling” later, I found
three possible candidates.

The first was a new drill by
Harbor Freight (Figure 1) — their
Drillmaster model 68239. The
second was the 18V Power Smith
model from Northern Tool
(Figure 2). The last was one
advertised as being by Boston
Industrial (Figure 3) on Amazon.

I dismantled all three as per
my article in the November ‘06
issue of SERVO, and they all came
apart without major problems. I will
cover the details of each drill in
turn.

The Good

First, the Harbor Freight 68239.
The case of this drill has one screw
hidden behind a label (Figure 4),
but you can easily pierce the label to
get at it.

The pinion gear on the motor
(Figure 5) is a press fit and smaller
than that of the older Harbor